


Run Them Red Lights.

by Thousandsmiles



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Also Tony Stark (briefly), Breaking the Law, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, POV Clint Barton, Tony Stark's Car, don't do this at home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6862264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thousandsmiles/pseuds/Thousandsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint deals with the aftereffects of Loki's mind control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run Them Red Lights.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written right after The Avengers came out. Enjoy. Title from song of the same name.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers.

Clint doesn’t know anyone else who has a car that they can afford to lose, so he ends up by Tony Stark. Just shows up at the man’s tower one evening and almost gives him a heart attack. They’ve barely spoken since New York, he doesn’t know him much except for what everyone knows and what Nat has said but there is no one else to go to. He hopes Stark doesn’t ask any stupid questions He doesn’t need stupid questions.

“Honestly Barton!” Tony shouts clutching at the arc reactor when he notices him behind him. “Way to kill a billionaire!”

Clit smirks. He can’t help it. “There are a lot of ways to kill a billionaire Stark. Scaring them to death is just my favorite.”

Stark frowns and rubs his chest. “Really, that’s the best you can come up with?”

“It’s effective,” Clint replies and he could see Stark struggle between his need to make a caustic retort and his want to laugh. The laughter wins and he huffs out a laugh.

“What are you here playing cloak and dagger at 3am for?” ask Stark as he heads to the bar. Clint figures he must have really scared him.

Clit sobers. “I need to borrow a car,” Clint tells him. He expects Tony to say something to that but instead he just sips from his glass and looks at him over the rim. After an uncomfortable silence he tips the whole glass backwards gulps down the remaining liquor and says:

“Sure.”

Clint hesitates and then says honestly, “You mayn’t get it back.”

Tony crosses the room, opens a hidden drawer and throws the keys at Clint. Clint snatches them out of the air. He once more expects Tony to say something but the billionaire genius just brushes past him and disappears out of the room, probably back to his lab.

Clint grips the keys and then steps into the elevator and asks Starks AI to take him to the garage. The elevator deposits him there and with murmured word of thanks to Jarvis, he gets out and presses a button on the keys to see which car he has the keys to. A sleek silver convertible beeps. Clint allows a brief smile to grace his features. Perfect. He needed the wind in his face for this.

He hops into the car and drives out of Stark tower and heads for the loneliest stretch of road that he can find that still has an abundance of traffic lights. He needs the traffic lights for this. He drives cautiously until he reaches the first of the lights and then does what he’s been trying not to do for the last few months. He lets his thoughts; his memories of his time under Loki’s control flood him. Let the pain from what he did flood him, let the guilt, the confusion, the sheer frustration of his failure to get over it fill him and run over. But most of all, he let his secret fear, his fear the he didn’t fight enough, that he had subliminally wanted and still wanted Loki’s control, that fear that Loki’s way of thinking was still right. He let it flood over him, that fear, that need, that want, let it flood through him and suffuse him. And all the while he stared steadily at the green light he was approaching.

 Green was for Loki. Green was for everything he represented, everything he had done. True it was the blue spear whose power had ripped through him, but it was Loki who had done it to him, Loki whose voice still whispered in what was either his nightmares or his sweetest dreams. He had lost the ability to tell a while ago. Clint stared hard at that green light and when it turned red, when it tried to tell him he could go no further, could only go the way of the green, Clint grinned and ran the red light.

He zoomed down the road, pressing the accelerator to the floor and half closed his eyes enjoying the wind in his face, its harsh wake up call. Clint saw the next set of lights up ahead, glowing green. Clint slowed.

_You have heart._

‘Damn right’ Clint thought. The light changed and Clint floored the pedal and ran the red light.

‘And it ain’t yours.’

The next set of lights glimmered in the distance. Green again.

_You were made to be ruled._

It flickered to red. Clint ran the light again.

‘Damn right again. I follow my own rules.’

_And what did it show you Agent Barton?_

Clint ran the next red light.

‘That you need a super powerful alien tool to try and change my mind’ He thought about what Nat had kept telling him over and over and added ‘And I still fought you hard enough that the avengers got a chance to beat you.’

The next green light appeared like and obstacle in the horizon. All the guilt of killing his colleagues.  The red appeared. Clint closed his eyes for a brief period of time and then opened them and ran the light. This time it was an intersection and other tires squealed as he zoomed past. It was like life. People might get hurt if he chose to go this way. People might hit him because he wasn’t going the right way as far as they were concerned. And Clint knew that he should be concerned, should care a little. Only he knew that if he did, if he tried to stop for them, tired to atone in their way, he would end up always listening to that green. Ad he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do it. He was risking everything but he chose to do it. Chose not to let others pain, slow him down.  Trap him. Kill him. It didn’t mean he didn’t care, he did. But he wasn’t going to feel their pain for them.

The next light signaled his confusion of what happened, of how it could happen, of how could he let it happen. Clint took a deep breath in. It was alien technology and he had fought it and had won to some extent. And that extent had been all that mattered when it came down to strictly winning or losing. Clint let out the breath and ran the light as it turned red. Horns honked and cars screeched but Clint was already gone.

The next was his frustration to not being able to shake Loki’s control over him or more accurately his frustration of not being able to shake the effects of said control. But Clint had already run through a few lights. This one was easier. He was doing it right now and it was for good. He ran through the red light, hooting as he did so.

The last green light appeared as a glowing menace appearing in his way, calling to him, telling him it was the only way that he would never get past this one, that he would have to obey its laws. Pain. Clint’s own pain. His own self inflicted hurt over what had happened and what he’d done.  Clint knew there was only one way through this one. He had to forgive himself. Forgive himself for all the pain he inflicted, for all the damage he had by proxy done, forgive himself for Coulson’s death and the almost successful takeover of the planet. Clint struggled with this one. Struggled because he caused pain and should as atonement be in pain. Tit for tat. Eye for an eye. But he knew that if he didn’t do this, he wouldn’t ever be free from Loki and the bastard would win in the end. He knew that somehow if he didn’t do this and move on, he would be dishonoring all the people that he was so desperately trying to atone for. Pain wasn’t canceled out by pain. Red in ledgers did not disappear by more of the same red. Red in ledgers disappeared with doing good things to save innocent people. Pain disappeared with forgiveness. Their pain, his pain, forgiveness and moving on was the key and Clint, would do it for them and surprisingly, as he watched the green light approaching, he would do it for him.

The light came nearer and nearer and as it flipped to red, Clint ran though it and released the pain and accepted his own forgiveness. And he laughed. And laughed. And laughed, as the weight he’d been carrying for months now dropped off his shoulders. He wasn’t okay by a long shot. But he was going to be. He leaned back his head into the breeze as the car picked up more speed and for the first time Clint, the hawk, felt like he was flying.


End file.
